A kindergartner who brought a cowboy-style cap gun onto his Calvert County school bus was suspended for 10 days after showing a friend the orange-tipped toy, which he had tucked inside his backpack on his way to school, according to his family and a lawyer.

The child was questioned for more than two hours before his mother was called, she said, adding that he uncharacteristically wet his pants during the episode. The boy is 5 — “all bugs and frogs and cowboys,” his mother said.

“I have no problem that he had a consequence to his behavior,” said the mother, who asked that her name be withheld to protect her son’s privacy.

“What I have a problem with is the severity,” she said, and the way it was handled.

The family’s attorney appealed the suspension late Thursday, asking that the action be reversed and the child’s record be expunged.

If the punishment stands, it would become part of the boy’s permanent school record and keep him out of classes the rest of the school year, the family said. He would miss his end-of-year kindergarten program at Dowell Elementary School in Lusby.

(…)

The mother said the principal told her that if the cap gun had been loaded with caps, it would have been deemed an explosive and police would have been called in.

The child’s disciplinary referral said he was being suspended for possession of a look-alike gun.

The child’s mother is a high school teacher in Calvert who said she strongly supports the school system and loves the teachers at her son’s school. She and her husband, who coaches youth sports, are active community volunteers.

For the family, a major concern is the long period the 5-year-old was questioned without parental guidance or support. His sister was questioned, too, she said.

“The school was quite obviously taking it very seriously, and he’s 5 years old,” she said. “Why were we not immediately contacted?”

There are really two issues here.

The first is the fact that this kids is being suspended for having a cap gun. If you read the rest of the article, you’ll see that he brought the gun, which wasn’t “loaded” with caps to show his friend. Not a smart decision, but this is a five year old for god sake.Say what you will, but five year-olds don’t always think things through the way an adult oes. Moreover, while I understand why schools are concerned about the whole issue of weapons in school, even in the hands of someone as young as five, it’s worth noting that this was a cap gun. I had cap guns when I was a kid and all they do is produce a moderately loud noise, they’re no danger to anyone. Treating this situation the same as if he’d brought an unloaded pistol to school just seems silly to me. Perhaps it would be appropriate to punish the child to teach him a lesson, but that can be done without suspending him and putting something on his school record that is going to follow him for the next twelve years of his education.

The second issue is a bigger deal, and it involves the fact that the boy was interrogated by school officials (police were never called) for up to two hours without his parents being notified. According to reports in other local news outlets here in the D.C. area, the boy became so upset during all of this that he urinated all over himself, an understandable reaction for a child in Kindergarten. Why weren’t the parents called in before they started questioning this boy, especially since it should have been readily apparent that he was no danger to himself or anyone else in the school? The fact that his mother is an employee of the very same school system makes the entire situation even more egregious. Perhaps this would have been an appropriate way to treat a 5th grader, or a kid in Middle or High School, but a kid who is just finishing up the year where they do things like learn the Alphabet? Utterly, utterly absurd.

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About Doug MataconisDoug holds a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May, 2010 and also writes at Below The Beltway.
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This is so very typical of our society and schools today,
They will not teach real lessons, only social ideas
as they see them. A Cap Gun is no more dangerous
than a ruler, a belt with a buckle, or even a plastic
lunch box. This punishment is ludicrous! It is time for
real Americans to stand up for American as it was
founded and grew for over a 100 years. Not the
America we see today!!!

The second issue is a bigger deal, and it involves the fact that the boy was interrogated by school officials (police were never called) for up to two hours without his parents being notified.

As the parent of a child who has had similar (but thankfully not so poorly-handled) issues, this sends me through the roof. I would be filing an enormous lawsuit against the school _and_ considering criminal charges as well. If the cops had been called & given an opinion that would be one thing, but “school officials” unequivocally do _not_ have this power. There needs to be some people getting fired for this.

While I agree with all of the above, there was a one week period in April in which four children shot other children to death with guns. One case involved a 5 year old who shot a 2 year old with a gun an adult bought and gave to him. Here’s another case:

JACKSONVILLE, FL, 4/13/13: A 13-year-old old girl was found dead inside a Northside home Saturday afternoon in what appears to be an accidental shooting, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Several children — ages 13, 11, 10, 9 and 1 — were in the home without adult supervision when a shooting occurred. It appears the children were playing with the firearm when it went off, hitting the 13-year-old.

While the school went too far here, children do kill children with guns in this land of FREEDUMB!

But what has that got to do with interrogating a five year old for two hours before informing his parents? Seriously, what information could they possibly have thought they would get from him? Info on an illegal cap gun dealer?

You and Doug are making the mistake of understanding this thing backwards, not forwards. I guarantee that the initial report to a school official was not, “Johnny has a harmless, unloaded cap gun.” It was, “Johnny has a gun!” That’s a little bit different.
The duty of the school at that point was not to shrug off the report and say , “Probably just a cap gun”. As a parent, you don’t want them doing that. You want them to investigate, question the child, and secure the purported weapon ASAP. Now did they go too far? Maybe. I certainly don’t think a suspension was called for. I would agree quick action was called for to secure the situation. I think that they were right to question the child immediately and to get the item from him. They should have stopped there, IMO, till the parents came.
Doug’s posting of a Hopalong Cassidy type cap pistol is cute. But there are plenty of cap pistols that look quite realistic. Realistic enough, unfortunately, to fool police officers.

The fatal police shooting earlier this month of a Texas middle school student clutching a BB gun – the latest in a series of incidents involving imitation firearms – spotlights how localities and states have struggled to identify and control both look-alike toys and guns that fire something other than bullets.

@stonetools: Well, you’re right about one thing: somebody here is looking at this issue backwards.

Nice strawman you built there, so you can knock it down. None of the “issues” you bring up were at play here. This was handled flat-out wrong, and all your defensiveness on behalf of Calvert County school officials isn’t going to make it right.

@stonetools: Not with cap guns, they don’t. To interrogate a 5 year old for 2 hours? There is no excuse, none whatsoever. So take his gun, suspend him if you feel the need to show him who’s boss………but to intimidate a little boy to the point where he pees his pants……..these scum need to be fired and charged with abuse

In Loudoun County in VA, we have the same stupid “no tolerance” rules. My son was being bullied by another kid on the bus (kid pushed him out of his seat). My son got frustrated and punched the kid in the thigh. Unfortunately, he had a (dull, because he never sharpens them) pencil in his hand. He was suspended for a day because he used a “weapon.” BEFORE we were ever notified, he was questioned, and made to sign a confession and the punishment was doled out.

We have now told all of our kids that if ANYTHING ever happens, they are to tell the principal, teacher, etc. that their parents have told them they are not allowed to say or sign ANYTHING until their dad (an attorney) is notified.

Oh, and the other kid wasn’t suspended.

Additionally, my girls aren’t allowed to carry Advil. Gee, ever have teenage girls around their period? They get cramps. They don’t go to the nurse until it is too late. At that point, they need to come home. Same with a headache. Oh, and sun tan lotion is considered “medicine” an can not be used in school…example field day…same with cough drops.

@george: They obviously had to determine that we wasn’t illegally obtaining and stockpiling rolls of caps to make a more dangerous explosive device…. I mean his parent might’ve even had a pressure cooker… doh.

@Paul Hooson: I have a few of these in an old toy box somewhere, still in real leather holsters!! I did not know they are worth a lot. I also have a toy Winchester cap rifle (these became very popular during the “Rifleman” tv run, starring the late, great LA Dodger Chuck Conners). Another item around here somewhere is a pirate cap pistol, bought at Disney World in the 1980’s. I might still have a couple of old Derringers around too.
It is amazing all the toys that tv series sold. The most famous: Mickey Mouse ears beanie cap, and the huge selling coonskin cap of Davy Crockett. I don’t think that tv sells a lot of toys like that now.

@mom of 4: While I like your approach, it ironically reveals the reason for such policies. Should a lawyer with any skill find school administrators not applying such policies uniformly, no doubt lawsuits will be filed, amiright?

I suppose no one has bothered to ask what idiot parent lets their child take a cap gun to school in the first place. Oh, the parent didn’t know what their kid was carrying? Small wonder the school wanted to find out whether or not something like this could’ve been repeated with something far more deadly. I personally took a fishing knife to school when I was 7 (this was 1985) specifically to scare off a bully. While I wasn’t suspended (principal knew my parents), he “interrogated” me to determine where it came from in the first place. Everyone involved agreed that my grandfather’s fishing knives were far too accessible for a child, and should be squirreled away somewhere safer.

Even though I grew up in the Bronx in the afterglow of WW II, I was always more inclined to the cowboy ways. I had the twin Fanner-Fiftys cap pistol rig which was, unfortunately, one of the banes of my dear mother’s existence.

One summer’s day, she took me and my sister to the movies, double-features in those days. The second movie was “The Charge at Feather River”, not only an oat-burner, but a 3-D oat-burner. I was allowed to wear my rig but was warned against bringing any caps. In one of the very few failures of my mother’s eternal vigilance program, she forgot the body cavity search and I managed to secret two full rolls on my person. During the intermission, I went off to the lavatory and loaded up.

The highlight of the movie for me was the, you guessed it, “The Charge at Feather River”. The besieged cavalry and cowpokes were attacked by the ferocious, in those days, pre-Native Americans. In unison, they loosed their arrows and spears which, through the miracle of 3-D, seemed to come pouring out of the screen directly at me. What’s a boy-cowboy to do but to shoot up some caps to protect his mother, sister, and himself. However, before I could get off even a handful of shots, my mother had re-established her normal level of control of both my property and my person.

Later that evening, my mother came into my room with that twinkle in her eye that meant “Your father wants to talk to you in the living room.” Denotations aside, the obvious connotation was that parental supervision had been kicked up a notch to the ultimate level. When I arrived in the living room, my father was involved with his evening beer, cigarette, and newspaper. I sat down as quietly as possible on the couch. My father lowered his broadsheet and gave me his sternest look. He then began his pre-waterboarding days interrogation.

“So,” my father began, “your mother took you to the movies this afternoon.” “She did,” I replied as my father’s look told me that that was all the answer required. “And, she let you take your six-guns.” Again, only the “She did.” “But, she told you no caps.” Once more, the “She did,” as the in-terror-gation proceeded along its course. “And, you took some anyway.” A quick switch to an “I did.” “And, you shot them off in the theater.” Again, an “I did” followed by a failed attempt to begin a litany of excuses for my actions.

“So,” my father began as he took a Lucky Strike pause, “How many Injuns d’ya kill?”

If you bothered to read my post, you would see that I thought the school went too far. I guess you thought the witch hunt had lasted long enough and we needed to go straight to the burning at the stake stage without considering the other side. Got it.

You would think. Of course, we weren’t there, so we can only speculate. Apparently he pointed the gun at someone on the school bus. Now if its the Hopalong Cassidy type gun that’s displayed above, that’s one thing. But frankly we don’t know what the gun looked like, or precisely what the circumstances were.
IMO, the school probably overreached. But kids do bring real guns to school and kids do shoot other kids with real guns, so this is not some phantom menace about things that never happen.

@Tyrell: Check out the prices on Ebay, you’ll be surprised. Those old cap guns are so cool. During the Vietnam War it seemed like war toys and toy guns disappeared for years. That was a sad period for military and gun toys. That’s why the 50’s and 60’s were so good. – I appreciate your comments. Have a super day! – Paul

A lawyer should be able to understand zero tolerance. If you take judgement calls away from school administrators, then there can be no nitpicking of those judgement calls by attorneys. What is amazing is that schools have all adopted zero tolerance to limit their vulnerability to civil rights litigation. Yet, it has not stopped activist from screaming racism and has now lead to calls from school discipline to be based on quotas. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michaela-pommells/affirmative-action_b_2052854.html

Maybe the take away is that when lawyers and the fear of lawyers drives policy, no one wins.

@stonetools: actually you said “maybe, the school went to far”. in fact it is quite clear that if they interrogated a child for more than two minutes without notifying his parents that was too far. if they then made him pee himself, it was an unconscionable, unjustifiable outrage. “maybe” is not applicable here.

Best action is always not to overreact. First, call the parents to come and pick up the gun then or wait until school lets out. Ask them to check the child’s book bag or pockets and read him the riot act about taking toys to school. Next send a letter out to parents about what happened and the importance of checking book bags regularly. The letter will help dispel the rumor mill. As school gets close to the end of the year all kinds of crazy things happen. The scary part is that a five year old msy not know the difference in a toy gun and a real one. Parents, always double secure your real guns if you have any. Small kids and real guns are a very bad mix.
There is an old rule that goes like: do not take a problem and make it worse.

im from the netherlands but i read news from all over the world….
i must conclude that the us is by far the country with the most scared gouverment in the world,
they make people so scared, that even teachers act like special agents….
the kid is 5!!
if i read youre comments im shocked!!
the most of you think its normal that he cant bring that gun to school….
ITS a TOY of a 5 year old!!

I agree with our Dutch visitor that there is something bizarre in our refusal to distinguish children’s toys from dangerous weapons. i feel as if this is about deflecting our inability to deal with real issues onto things that we can control:
1. This country has a huge and real problem with guns and we seem politically unable to do anything about it. So what do we do? We go nuts about toy guns in schools. The kid can have as many guns as his parents want to buy him, of course, as long as he keeps them at home. But we can have a zero tolerance policy on pretend weapons!
2. There are real problems in our society about sexual abuse and predators, reaching into major institutions, online networks, etc. What do we do? Make it a felony for a high school senior to date a freshman! Because if we put people on the sex-offender registry for life for inappropriate teen dating, that will solve all our problems.

I agree with most of the other comments about the stupidity of zero tolerance, but your comments have given me pause. It does explain the policy somewhat, but I do not think I agree with it. While I may not agree with a person, I do appreciate a thoughtful comment.

I think that far too often people make “the mistake of understanding this thing backwards, not forwards.” I would rephrase it to be “imposing today onto the past,” but that is more encompassing.

Treating this situation the same as if he’d brought an unloaded pistol to school just seems silly to me

You think that if he’d brought a real gun to school, the punishment would have been the same? He’d have been expelled, juvenile authorities would have been called in, his parents would have at the very least been questioned by the police and might have been arrested and/or lose the kid to protective services, at least for a while.

The story sounds like it may have been trumped up a little by the parents and media. Bringing a cap gun to school, especially if it was a realistic-looking one, is a very bad idea and some kind of punishment was in order. As for the 2 hour “interrogation,” is that what it really was or was he sitting in the principal’s office, just waiting for most of that time? Should parents be called immediately every time the kid is sent to the principal’s office?

Zero-tolerance policies are stupid but I suspect there’s less than meets the eye here.

This is, of course, totally ridiculous. But is it really more ridiculous than the three other stories in the past week where little kids have “accidentally” killed someone with a REAL loaded gun lying around?

I’d like to reiterate that the chief gripe from both the parents and the writer is that punishment far exceeded the crime and that the child was interrogated WITHOUT the parents present.

Forget children, ADULTS frequently end up being co-erced into confessing and/or agree to some kind of punishment by the police. There is a reason why interrogating a minor without the guardian’s permission is considered illegal.

@ stonetools: The issue of children killing children has almost no bearing on the situation. The article does not in any way approve of the child bringing a gun to school. It focuses on the consequences.

Should the parents have made sure the child didn’t bring a (toy) gun to school? Yes. Should the child be reprimanded? Yes. Should the child receive a academic suspension which he probably doesn’t understand and will follow him for the rest of his academic career(including college)? Obviously, NO.

The child is 5. Do you really want to hold the CHILD responsible for a PARENT’s responsibility? There is no circumstance in which a child should be interrogated by police/school administrators without his parents, and ESPECIALLY to the point where he pees on himself. We don’t allow police to interrogate adult criminals until they pee themselves without an attorney present either. What makes a child different?

Doug, you acknowledge that a five year old doesn’t know what’s what, but then assert the situation was/ should not have been treated the same as if an actual unloaded revolver was brought to school property, but what’s the functional difference as far as punishing the KID should be concerned?

Parents should have been contacted right away.

Oh, and as big of a Second Amendment supporter as I am, I hardly think it’s crazy for a school’s administration, given our current climate, to react strongly and severely to this sort of behavior. I’m not sure a lengthy suspension is in order, however. I’m assuming the gun had an orange tip, unlike the one pictured above, so it should have been immediately obvious the gun was a cap gun and not a real revolver.